RYAN McDONOUGH
Title: General manager, Phoenix Suns
Career path: First job in sports was as an intern with the Boston Red Sox; hired in 2003 by the Boston Celtics as special assistant to basketball operations, worked up to assistant general manager; joined the Phoenix Suns in 2013.
With Ryan McDonough’s bloodlines, he seemed destined to be a sports journalist, not one of the NBA’s young-gun general managers.
The 34-year-old general manager of the Phoenix Suns is the son of the late Boston Globe sportswriter Will McDonough and brother of ESPN broadcaster Sean McDonough. He appeared on track to follow into the family business after earning his journalism degree at the University of North Carolina.
But an internship with the Boston Red Sox led him to an entry-level job with the Boston Celtics in 2003. Before
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| Photo by: USA Today Sports |
long, McDonough was blazing his own path from those humble beginnings.
“The Celtics gave me an opportunity editing tapes — and they were VHS tapes —-and I was there morning, night and noon watching film,” McDonough said.
Celtics general manager Danny Ainge occasionally would drop in and ask McDonough about what he had gleaned from the grunt work. Soon, a career was born.
“I guess he liked my opinions and it progressed to going to college games and expanded to national coverage,” McDonough said.
In 2007, McDonough was put in charge of international scouting and earned a reputation as a keen judge of NBA talent. By 2010, he was assistant general manager of the Celtics.
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When the Phoenix Suns approached him in 2013 to become the team’s general manager, McDonough, then 33, was ready to run the Suns’ basketball operations. He quickly hired a coach in Jeff Hornacek and, working with team President Lon Babby, began to put his own stamp on the franchise.
McDonough skillfully blends analytics with his own eye test in gauging talent.
“Your eyes tell you one thing and then you look at the numbers and get the analytics take,” McDonough said. “It’s math with your gut.”
So far, it’s proved to be an effective combination. Last season, McDonough overhauled the Suns roster, hired Hornacek and watched the Suns become one of the NBA’s surprising teams.
They ended with a 48-34 record and barely missed the playoffs while vastly improving from the previous season’s 25-57 record.
It was an impressive debut for McDonough, but one that didn’t surprise Babby.
“He is a bright, young, up-and-coming general manager,” Babby said. “He knows every player in the world and what they had for breakfast. He has a superb knowledge of the CBA and he is getting more experience as a negotiator. He has a real knowledge of analytics, but he is balanced about it, and that is the way to use it. He would be good if he were 25, 35 or 45.”
